Open House- Day 1

This afternoon we opened up our house for the first time to the public as part of London Open House - we had over two hundred visitors in just over 4 hrs. I must say that so far (tomorrow we're open again for the whole day )it has been an incredibly positive experience - it's been great to get so much feedback and we've had many positive comments. The weather today certainly played its part as its been beautiful clear blue skies. Tomorrow however will be quite different, the forecast is for heavy rain and strong winds and with the large windows and rooflights in the house the feeling inside can be dramatically affected by the outside conditions - it will be interesting to see if there is any change in peoples reactions as a result..

How many men does it take to fix up a banner?

The lull before the Storm

People arriving

Blue skies.. - inside & out

All hands on deck - London Open House!

..so excuse the pun but it really has been all hands on deck this week as we've built a new deck for the courtyard in the new house and tried to finish off as much as possible in time for opening up for the public this weekend as part of London Open House. We've managed to achieve quite a lot but there will still be quite a few things not complete - such as the front gate.. Sadly we've been let down by a delivery of pebbles for the front courtyard today so things won't look quite as good as we had hoped but if there is one thing I have learned building a house it is not to rely on  deliveries being on time!

Here's my builder Keith (on his knees!) and Mick carrying soil for the new planter..

'All Hands on Deck'

..and even my In-laws have flown in from Sweden to help with the gardening and making the curtains!

Silence is Golden

It's been a very long time since I last posted on this blog. And this silence has definitely been golden as it has been due to us being extremely busy.. Since the last post we've:

Completed the design of a winery near Eastbourne (south coast of England) which we've been working on in collaboration with designer Martin Swatton - it starts on site this month.

Won a competition against some of the UK's largest architecture firms and all but completed an extensive summer improvement works to convert a Grade II listed Girls High School into a modern 6th Form Centre in my home town Bedford.

Moved into our new house which is now close to being complete - we're now frantically preparing to open it to the public this weekend as part of London Open House.

Commenced work on site for a new office building constructed using SIPs (structural insulated panel) for the staff of the winery project.

Submitted an extensive contemporary house extension for planning approval.


..and Moved into a new office behind Waterloo station


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